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Any populist arguments completely fail to take into account the sheer volume of poor people. Even if you had a 100% tax on all income over 50k a year and a 100
by nazgulnarsil 18y ago
Any populist arguments completely fail to take into account the sheer volume of poor people. Even if you had a 100% tax on all income over 50k a year and a 100% tax on all corporate profits over 50k a year per employee, you wouldn't have enough money to give everyone a middle class lifestyle.
and that is if we don't even take into account the extreme inflationary forces that would take hold if everyone made middle class money. If you tried this in reality all that would happen is that prices would rise until that middle class income reflected the buying power that a lower class income previously did.
You can't magic a high standard of living into existence by giving away money (see Iceland). To think that you can is a fundamental misunderstanding of what money is. Steve Jobs doesn't make millions of dollars because he got lucky in an unfair game with arbitrary rules. He makes it because he creates millions of dollars in value to people.
- anamax 18y ago> you wouldn't have enough money to give everyone a middle class lifestyle. What's a "middle class lifestyle"? I ask because poor people in the US have a lot of things that might be considered luxury items in other places, such as TVs, microwaves, cars, and so on. (One of my favorite examples is someone who ranted "I'm homeless. Me and my five children have to share a two bedroom apartment.")
- yummyfajitas 18y agoFurther info: an article listing the goods and services the poor tend to have access to. Not bad at all. http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/bg1713.cfm http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/bg1713.cfm
- nazgulnarsil 18y agoexactly, by all reasonable metrics we already have achieved the ideal of a baseline below which people can't fall. the cries of more aid for the poor when the aid already given is distributed inefficiently and unfairly seems disingenuous at best and power seeking at worst.